Download the first chapter for free!

I got my very first copy of Sex, Bombs and Burgers the other day, and if you can forgive the slight exaggeration, it was like seeing my child born. In the two-and-a-half years so far, all the hard, continuous and often obsessive work I’ve poured into this project has really only existed in an electronic ether.

But with the bound, printed pages in my hands, I was finally holding on to something real - the tangible goal I’ve been looking forward to for so long. Of course, I couldn’t help but feel immense pride, as many parents must feel (or so I imagine) when their actual children enter the world. Over all, it’s very satisfying.

There’s only about a week or so before the book hits stores, so I’m getting a little nervous about how it will be received. In the meantime, though, there is still that electronic ether: if you want to check out a sneak preview of Sex, Bombs and Burgers, Penguin Canada is featuring the first chapter on its website as a free download. The chapter, “Weapons of Mass Consumption,” takes a look at how the Second World War launched a revolution in consumer living, with a specific look at how the microwave oven and a number of new plastics came to be. A complete chapter listing is here.

And if you’re wondering - the downloadable preview does not appear to be geo-blocked. I had a friend in the U.K. test it and it worked, which means you should be able to download it wherever you live. That’s a good thing because I’m all for disseminating a sample to as many people as possible, but then again, I wouldn’t be surprised if the universal availability might somehow run afoul of one of my other publishers’ rights in a different country.

That’s not necessarily something I would have to worry about, as it would be sorted out between them. But the whole issue of country-by-country versus universal and global copyrights is a pretty complex one that I’ve been thinking about for some time. It’s a big can of worms that I’ll get into eventually, but I’ll save that for another post. In the meantime, I think my baby’s crying… I have to go feed it!